In the days of the humble videocassette, the tag 'direct-to-video' was synonymous with 'low-budget crap.' Profit margins on DTV movies (except in the rare instance when an intended theatrical release was deemed so awful that it was only released on video) were pretty small, so the budgets were likewise tiny. The likes of Nu Image, PM Entertainment and Roger Corman's New Horizons churned out action movies, chopsockey flicks and 'erotic' thrillers with casts picked from the bottom rungs of the Hollywood ladder, people like Billy Blanks, Traci Lords, Billy Drago and even Don 'The Dragon' Wilson.

But the DVD era caused a significant change in buying habits. DVD combined the ubiquity of VHS with the collectibility of laserdisc, which is a fancy way of saying DVD fans will buy pretty much anything. According to Wikipedia movies released exclusively to those shiny discs o' joy have collectively grossed somewhere in the region of three billion dollars. Not surprising then that projects intended solely for DVD are being made with budgets in the $20 million range, a fraction of the cost of a typical summer blockbuster but a significant sum nonetheless. Faded stars like Seagal, Van Damme and Snipes still have enough of a guaranteed audience to command between $2 million and $10 million per picture. Even the name has been upgraded from direct-to-video to the swankier sounding 'DVD Premiere.'

The big studios quickly caught on and most now have their own DVDP divisions, trawling their back catalogues for cheapquel possibilities. At first glance their choices may seem surprising, given that most are sequels to movies nobody liked all that much in the first place. But invariably the originals performed very well on home video and cable, often better than they did in theatres. Hence the likes of Timecop 2, Species III, Starship Troopers 2, American Pie 4, Wild Things 2 & 3, House of the Dead II (yes, really) and, perhaps inevitably, Road House 2.

Though it wasn't a particularly big box office success, Patrick Swayze's 1989 kickboxing redneck flick remains a staple of home video and cable TV. For me it's a bad movie classic; it combines some rockin' blues tunes, occasionally good acting, kung fu and boobies with horribly dated 80s fashions, gigantic hair, ripe dialogue and some of the gayest subtext ever committed to film. With all that in mind I simply had to see Road House 2, if only to find out how badly it had been screwed up...

The first flick was set in the Midwest, but this one finds a home in the deep South - Tyree, Louisiana to be precise. There's a jumpin' swamp-front bar there called the Black Pelican, owned and run by Nate Tanner (Will Patton, Armageddon). Nate is being pressured to sell the bar to local crime kingpin Wild Bill (Jake Busey, The Frighteners) because it's so conveniently located for running drugs, but tough old Nate won't sell. Nate is duped into meeting Bill at a secluded location where he is beaten and stabbed by some of Bill's goons, including knife-obsessed girlfriend Nadja (Marisa Quintanilla).

Meanwhile in NYC there's a drug deal going down in the inevitable titty bar. The buyer is Nate's nephew Shane Tanner (Johnathon Schaech, That Thing You Do!), but it ends badly when several DEA agents appear from nowhere and arrest everyone. The lead agent is Sherri (Crystal Mantecon), who somehow manages to have concealed a Magnum Desert Eagle in her microscopic bikini-&-fishnets ensemble. The presumably competent, professional law enforcement officer drags Shane off to a private booth and confesses that posing as a lapdancer "really turns her on" - nice to see the franchise's commitment to feminism hasn't been diluted in the intervening years. Shane, of course, is also an undercover DEA agent, revealed when he removes his jacket to reveal a T-shirt with 'DEA' on the back in huge letters. Obviously this is exactly what a deep-cover operative would wear to a drug deal, just in case they got suspicious and frisked him...

Word comes through that Uncle Nate is in the hospital, so Shane goes AWOL to find out what happened. But first he tells Sherrie to ask the guy they just arrested if he knows anything about the Murder of Shane's father, and she asks if he really thinks the guy is involved. "No," replies Shane, "but I always ask." Shane's Dad, you see, was legendary nightclub cooler Dalton from the original Road House, killed under mysterious circumstances.

On his way down to Tyree (in a car that's the spitting image of Dalton's old Mercedes) Shane meets a hot blonde struggling to change a tyre to her jeep. This is Beau (Ellen Hollman), and from her angry reaction when Shane offers to help, two things instantly become clear: (1) she's a tough ball-breakin' Bush-votin' Southern Riot Grrrrl who don't need no man's help noway nohow nosiree, and (2) she'll have sex with Shane some time in the next 35 minutes.

After a touching flashback at his uncle's place Shane goes to the bar - cue much "you're Dalton's kid? I thought you'd be bigger" shenanigans. One of the bouncers fills him in on Wild Bill, who has all the local cops in his pocket. Some of Bill's men are in the bar causing trouble so Shane steps in to demonstrate the family strain of whupass has not skipped a generation. The locals look impressed, especially Beau who stops by to thank Shane for his help with the car.

After work Shane assembles the staff and tells them he's planning to run the place until Nate recovers, and gives a quick reprise of the rules of being a bouncer from the first film. It's all about the continuity, see? Meanwhile Wild Bill's boss Victor Crost (Richard Norton, Rage and Honor) is getting annoyed at the lack of progress with the purchase of the Black Pelican. He has a big deal coming up and wants the bar ready for the handover. I'm really not sure why, given that Wild Bill's pad also seems to be on the waterfront (everyone’s is, it seems) and on top of that has a hot tub full of naked chicks.

Beau swings by to see Shane and a lengthy and contrived series of events leads to her kicking him in the nuts. This is, of course, treated as pure comedy gold but also sets up the fact that she can handle herself. Apparently she joined the army to pay for college, training she now puts to good use as an elementary school teacher. She takes Shane out for coffee to apologise for smashing his gonads, and explains what a hotbed for drug activity the area has become. When they get back to Nate's his house has been trashed. Shane, seemingly intimidated, offers to sell. But really he's setting up a bust at the bar with some of his DEA friends (note Steamed Prawn Buns' favourite stunt lady Sophia Crawford as a hot DEA agent posing as a waitress). The bust goes bad and Bill escapes, and with the local sheriff breathing down his neck Shane closes the bar down for a while.

Shane promises the staff he'll help them clean the place up later but Beau convinces him to go on a date instead. He explains over dinner how Nate raised him because Dalton moved around so much. Shane also thinks Dalton was killed by mistake - he'd borrowed Shane's car and may have been shot by somebody expecting him to be the son, not the father. Shane plans to head over to the bar after dinner but Beau convinces him to go back to her place (what did I tell you?). So when Shane finally goes to the Black Pelican the next day he finds it wrecked and one of the bouncers dead. He correctly guesses that Beau was trying to keep him away from the bar and confronts her about it.

She admits that she's Wild Bill's cousin and was trying to stop Shane from getting hurt. At which point Crost, in town to personally take care of Shane and the bar, shows up and takes them prisoner. Beau is dispatched out back with a couple of amorous heavies (where would dumb action movies be without distasteful rape threats?) while Crost menaces Shane. In a classic bit of villain exposition he reveals that Shane busted him for possession once, and as revenge he set up a hit, but it was Dalton who died by mistake.

In a bad action movie such a revelation could only be met by some kickboxing smackdown, which is exactly what happens next. Shane and Crost trade blows but it's the junior Dalton who prevails, heading for the bar to find the guy who actually pulled the trigger on his Dad - Wild Bill. Beau tags along too, having taken care of her would-be rapists. At the bar Shane arrives in time to foil the major sale Crost was planning, and as he fights Wild Bill to the death Beau gets into a fairly spectacular bitch-rumble with Nadja. The town is freed, the DEA get a big collar and soon the moonshine is flowin' again. Ahhh, I love a happy ending.

Nice to see the spirit of those old direct-to-video movies is alive and well in Road House 2. As with most DTV action flicks the script is just a bunch of clichéd old tripe to lead from one fight or gratuitous topless girl to the next. Not only that, the film even stars Australian karate ace and DTV stalwart Richard Norton as the bad guy. Strangely he gets higher billing than Jake Busey, despite being less well known to most people and having much less screen time. Performances are on the whole OK, though I initially struggled to reconcile the whiny singer from That Thing You Do! with a badass kickboxing hero (Johnathon Schaech also contributed to the script, and as a writer he makes a pretty good actor). Jake Busey seems to have decided you can't fight genetics and is slowly but surely turning into his father, not only in appearance but performance too. Wild Bill isn't quite up to the level of batshit crazy as Busey Sr. in Predator 2, but he's close.

The fight scenes are of a good standard, with choreography by stunt ace J.J. Perry (Enter the Eagles). The budget apparently didn't stretch to extensive training for the cast, so the fights are filmed the old-fashioned Hollywood way; the actors are shot in close-up while the more elaborate moves are performed by doubles. But it's skilfully done and there are a couple of really fun throw downs - the best one being between the two women, doubled nicely by Sophia Crawford and Karin Silvestri.

But it's the combination of elements other than the action that makes the original Road House a classic. It's the awful 1980s fashions, the hilarious homoerotic content, the searing blues guitar of Jeff Healey, Patrick Swayze's dreadful mullet... all these things are lacking from the sequel, though James Otto’s hick-rock stylings are hummable enough. I did hear some time ago that Swayze was supposed to be in the movie but I guess in the end he decided bettor of it (my guess would be the Will Patton character is a hastily-written replacement for Dalton). Director Scott Ziehl is a veteran of video-only sequels having done Cruel Intentions 3, and clearly can’t bring anything fresh or interesting to the party. So inevitably the sequel falls a long way short of the original’s bad-movie classic status, but taken as a straight DTV action flick it’s quite sufficient – and that’s more than I was expecting.

Dave Thomas, 19^th July 2006